


the edge of forever

by nutellamuffin



Category: Chronicles of Narnia (Movies), Chronicles of Narnia - C. S. Lewis
Genre: Aslan's Country, Fluff, You're Welcome, and just enjoy this ok, and of course caspian would be happiest when he had edmund, and of course edmund would be happiest when he had a kingdom where he could be himself, i took this hc and ran with it, ignoring canon (again), now i just gave u the visual of them being soft together for eternity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-06
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 20:28:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25741345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nutellamuffin/pseuds/nutellamuffin
Summary: when caspian dies, there is no bright light. there is only a doorway, and a lion, and an overwhelming sense of confusion.
Relationships: Caspian/Edmund Pevensie
Comments: 3
Kudos: 60





	the edge of forever

when caspian dies, there is no bright light. there is only a doorway, and a lion, and an overwhelming sense of confusion. (which caspian doesn’t hate, for the first time. how awfully poetic, he thinks, that the only time he doesn’t mind being confused in his entire life is when it’s over.)

he looks down upon his body and it is twenty one. (or perhaps twenty two. he has lost this body long ago. he doesn’t know it any more.) he does not ask the lion where he is. somehow, he knows. and the lion only smiles because he does not need him to. the one question caspian does have, however, is answered for him before he opens his mouth.

“you are eternally at the age where you were happiest.” the lion says, watching him examine his hands in the sunlight. (the hands that are not old, the hands that are callused because they are young and full of adventure, ink-stained fingertips from tracing maps and pointing at stars.)

“i would have thought i would be seven.” caspian says then, looking out onto the horizon and pretending that this body doesn’t make his heart clench in his chest. (because this body had seen the stars with someone he no longer knows, this body had roamed the world in a boat and had felt the most at peace that he ever had, this body had had  _ happiness _ , like the lion said, for the longest time and caspian didn’t know that feeling anymore. because it was so much easier to think that he was the happiest when he was seven years old, because it was so much easier to make peace with the fact that he was happiest when his parents were alive, because it was so much easier to remember something that he had long since gotten over versus something he hadn’t.)

when edmund dies, he is expecting it. he walks into the light and he does not look back because he’s dreamed of this, he’s dreamed of this place above the clouds. (because this place is the closest to narnia, or perhaps it is, and he is in no rush to figure it out.)

and then he sees him, holding his hands up to the sun and the lion watching him with the most amused expression a lion could have, and it is as if all is right in the world. and it does not matter that they have forever when he runs towards him, when he wraps his arms around him and squeezes tight.

edmund knows confusion for the first time since he died when caspian pushes him away.

caspian does not want to know this body he is in, but it is familiar. this man who just embraced him, he truly does not know, and the thought crosses his mind that it may be someone he used to. 

he is barely twenty three, and there are smile lines etched into his face, and he has a twinkle of wonder in his eyes. and this man, this man is grinning at him, too; all teeth, glowing, and full of a light that he feels he once knew. this man holds a lifetime in his gaze that caspian would never know, but he feels he wants to. (there is a certain sharpness in his grin that seems to be mostly absent for the sole reason that he doesn’t have to worry anymore. even though he has never seen this face, caspian can picture it with bags under the eyes that are no longer there.) 

he cannot put his finger on it until this man says his name.

the lion is gone from edmund’s side but he is past caring, and something feels different when he realizes that he is slightly looking down at the man in front of him. his eyes trace over his own skin and clothes and he realizes with delight that he is back in the body he has yearned for during all of his second life. he is not as old as he was when he was shoved back into london, he is light on his feet and he is smiling, and he has memorized this face in the mirror so many times that he doesn’t need one to recognize it.

“caspian,” he says, and he knows he doesn’t need to say any more when the seafarer’s expression changes. (because the fact always haunted him that his voice stayed the same until he was nearly thirty, it is older and it is wearier but perhaps not for much longer.) he says caspian’s name the same way he said it soaking wet, standing on the deck of a ship he saw in a painting. he says caspian’s name the same way he whispered it to the stars. and he knows he does not have to long for a touch anymore.

the man in front of him is from a lifetime caspian never knew but wished to. a lifetime he heard about through storybooks, a lifetime he never lived that he saw flash before his eyes when he laid eyes on edmund the first time. because he would know edmund blind, or perhaps that was a better way of knowing him, since if this man had hugged him with his eyes closed he surely would’ve hugged him back.

and so he embraces him, again, for the second time in nearly seventy years. (it was shorter for edmund, caspian knew, and with a heart-stopping realization everything clicks, and caspian realizes that he came to this otherworldly place as an old man and edmund came here as a teenager.)

both of them cling to each other like they cling to their lives that were lived in these bodies that they had long lost, and caspian’s fingertips will remain forever ink-stained, and edmund’s grin will remain forever sharp. and caspian will say that he’s not used to being younger, and edmund will remind him he always was. and there is always soft music playing somewhere but caspian can’t quite place it, all he sees is edmund and the edge of forever.


End file.
